Divinitas fic, Gryps and Ari's story
by sweet bitter belossom
Summary: The beginning of Gryps and Ari's story. This will be phased with the other chapters in 'To know Thyself' when i reach this part in chapters.


**Chapter nine** – Reflections of the Soul

* * *

Gryps had always liked the ocean. Ever since he had first glimpsed it shimmering beautifully in the noonday sun, churning with a million shades of blue and throwing itself on upon the land in a splendid show of power and ferocity, he had been filled with respect for the great body of life.

Perhaps that was the reason that he had agreed with Casimir so easily to come here. Having no real place to go to when away from the castle, and not fond of the idea of wandering aimlessly throughout the world, Gryps had procured a great deal of money from the Goddess. Initially he had simply planned to buy an isolated lodging somewhere quiet for a month, but then Casimir had told him to go to Aldebaran.

Aldebaran was Casimir's castle. Not that she had ever lived their. Choosing to live in the castle of Genesis, the only reason Aldebaran still stood was because it had once served it's purpose as a holiday house in the days when she could get Aether to actually leave his castle.

The castle itself was not that large. Certainly not as large as Genesis it stood only three stories high and looked more like a large manor. But is ethereal beauty let it shine like a star beside any other in the world. Carved of pearl, marble and coral, the beautiful castle sat out on a great stone platform that rose out of the sea. Ivory spires rose from the platform at north, south, east and west, towering over the castle, and shining a ghost like light out to sea every evening, lighting the water up beautifully. It was a castle that was never in darkness. Apparently Deus had played a part in the creation of the great lodging, so the architecture of Ten haunted the halls, but Casimir had claimed it was still 'homely'.

Not that any of that mattered to Gryps. Accepting the scroll Casimir had handed him, he had left without fuss, flying to the gates of the great 'Castle of the Sea' in all his grace and finery and announcing to the guards exactly who he was. Of course they had let him in without question, their heads bowed and weapons lowered.

It was then, he had discovered the one thing Casimir had conveniently forgotten to mention.

The castle had a lady who ruled it while Casimir was away.

And she wasn't human.

Lady Seridethia had greeted him as he entered the main courtyard, bowing lowly and watching him with a smile as he took in her large willowy wings with vague surprise.

"A Tenshi lives here?" he had asked coldly as the woman stood and shook her head.

"Not quiet Griffin of light" she said in a voice that was both deep and light. "My name is Seridethia. Lady Casimir told me of your arrival. Is there anything you will require during your stay?"

Looking at the wings again and frowning, Gryps had simply walked past her, following a young boy who had just picked up his luggage and was headed for the entrance.

"Solitude" he said shortly, before disappearing inside.

The Lady Seridethia had laughed.

For the most part, his wish had been obeyed. No one disturbed him, except the odd servant bringing him food or encountering him by chance down a corridor, and even then, the person would divert their eyes and walk by as fast as possible.

Ari had found their actions vaguely annoying. Scurrying around and treating Gryps as if he was something vile to be avoided. He had lightly teased his light half about it, but was only met with a silent wall of hostility.

How he hated that silence.

Gryps now refused to even acknowledge Ari's presence. The dream torture had not stopped, and both Ari and Gryps were both suffering the very extremes of the consequences.

Gryps would now not sleep willingly at all, and when he finally did fall into an exhausted slumber, the dreams were becoming worse.

Always that same manor.

Always the same nameless faces, gazing at him in such pain and suffering.

And always the same silent response to them when he awoke.

Gazing quietly at the golden ocean that was lit by the first tendrils of light breaking the clouds of the early morning, Gryps decided that this had to stop. He had awoken this morning to the screams of the duchess Dawn as he, once again in a different body to his dark half, had been forced to watch Ari cover the room in the girls blood.

Enough was enough. This had to stop.

Getting to his feet, Gryps shrugged off his bed clothes and made his way to the steaming bath that was waiting for him in the next room. Gathering his hair up into a loose bun so as not to get it wet, he stepped into the water and hissed as his skin reacted to the heat.

'we look beautiful with our hair pinned up' Ari said quietly as Gryps lay in the water and glance at the large ornate mirror hanging to his left. He wasn't so vain that he agreed with him aloud, but he did see something attractive in his reflection.

'can you imagine if there were two of us? Perfect twins. We would be the envy of so many. But none of them would matter because you would be mine. I'd hold you forever and never let you go'

Blocking Ari's voice out of his head, Gryps picked up the soap and hurried on with his bath. He could not imagine Ari as a twin. As something outside of his body that he could not control.

Shuddering at the very thought, he quickly cleaned himself and dressed, refusing to listen to anything Ari said. The twin idea had disturbed him enough.

Far from feeling hungry, he decided to skip breakfast and instead to go exploring. He had been at the castle for three days now, and it had already exhausted his curiosity. Pretty much consisting of a great music hall, a great library and a great myriad of halls filled with painted scenes of ocean life, Gryps had initially wondered why Casimir had not sent Draco here instead. It seemed like the perfect place for the boy. And he probably would have been able to appreciate the singing a lot more as well.

Remembering too late that he was staying at the castle of the Goddess of Song, Gryps now found himself listening to beautiful and haunting hymns for most of the day and loathing them. Seridethia's voice seemed able to permeate any wall, and most of the songs she sang reminded him too much of the hymns that choirs preformed at temples.

Overall her tone was depressing. She sang often of lost love and the sadness life could bring. Even if she did sing of nature and beauty, her voice was so mystic it almost made her sound sorrowful and repressed.

'Draco would have called it 'calming' Ari had muttered one afternoon as Seridethia's foreign lullaby tune threatened to send him to sleep. 'but she is really provoking me into tearing her throat out'

Silently Gryps agreed. If Ari had gone off with dagger in hand at that moment, there was a very high chance Gryps would not have tried to stop him.

As he started wandering the halls in the direction of the front entrance hall, Music started once more, and he picked up his gait to walk faster as Seridethia's voice let out a starting note.

Not again.

C'mon, not even Casimir sang this often.

'_My life goes on in endless song  
above earth's lamentations,  
I hear the real, though far-off hymn  
that hails a new creation.'_

Three more stair cases. Two more halls. Then he would be out the door.

_'Through all the tumult and the strife  
I hear it's music ringing,  
It sounds an echo in my soul.  
How can I keep from singing?'_

"Close your mouth?" Gryps muttered sarcastically as he trotted down the stairs. Ari laughed and Gryps scowled. That joke wasn't for him.

_While though the tempest loudly roars,  
I hear the truth, it liveth.  
And though the darkness 'round me close,  
songs in the night it giveth._

It almost seemed as if her voice was getting louder as he neared the last stair case.

_No storm can shake my inmost calm,  
while to that rock I'm clinging.  
Since love is lord of heaven and earth  
how can I keep from singing?_

Finally reaching the front entrance hall, Gryps slowed his running and walked out into the coldness of the early morning. The singing did not stop as he reached the fresh air, but the song was really starting to grind on Gryps nerves. He had never heard anything so stupid before. '_Love is lord of Heaven and Earth_?' He was pretty sure neither Aether or Deus even entertained the idea of the notion.

Pulling his wings free violently and unfurling them with little grace, he disregarded the blood that he had just covered the stairs with and took to the sky, flying till he could no longer hear the stupid woman.

Why sing of love in the first place?

It's not like he would ever have it.

Not with Ari around.

* * *

He had landed on a beach. After walking aimlessly for awhile and letting the feeling of the sand tickle the bottom of his feet as he walked at the edge of the water, he had climbed amid a collection of rock pools in the shadow of a tall cliff and inspected them, fascinated at some of the fish and life forms he came across. 

Pulling out his sketch pad, he sat and watched a small group of little yellow fish nibble at a piece of coral before trying to poke at it with the end of his pencil. He was so surprised when the coral suddenly puffed out and became a sea urchin that he stumbled backwards and landed on his bottom in another pool.

Ari was in fits of laughter. He rarely saw Gryps allow his childish curiosity go unmasked, and it made him happy when he did. Plus he found the situation very amusing.

"Oh go bite yourself" Gryps muttered darkly, getting out of the pool and sidestepping a very disgruntled crab.

Standing and straightening his clothes, he hoped that the wet patch would dry quickly and thanked his stars that no one was around to see.

'I can see you'

No one that mattered.

Picking up his pencil, he moved a few pools away from the urchin and yellow fish, and started to draw the contents of the new one. A sponge type coral and two starfish.

'I know you hate those dreams.'

"…"

'But you really shouldn't have started ignoring me'

"…"

'Why did you start ignoring me?'

"…"

'Did I make you angry?'

Gryps pencils strokes became darker.

'I've only ever protected you haven't I?'

"…"

'but now you treat me like I make you suffer. Like _I'm_ the bad one. The one that would see you hurt'

Gryps pencil broke.

'I never want to see you hurt Gryps. I Lo-'

A scream broke Ari's words off and cast both their attention to the sky above them.

'oh look, it's raining children' Ari said calmly as Gryps tossed his pencil and book aside and took to the air, catching a small girl halfway during her journey to the sharp rocks below.

The child, who he identified as a small girl with violet hair, clung to him fiercely and buried her face in his shirt.

"well, that was unexpected" Ari said as he flapped his wings and returned to the top of the cliff. Moving a safe distance from the ledge, Ari landed and then attempted to pry the child off him, feeling rather uncomfortable with the contact. Looking around, he hoped to find a parent or someone who could take the child away, but instead, was met with nothing. There was no one for miles.

Great.

"Get off" he said coldly as he released his hold on her and just let her hang on the front of his shirt. He had seen women do this with clingy children, and they had always dropped right off. But this one didn't.

'oh look. She likes you' Gryps muttered sarcastically as Ari yanked on the little girls hair.

"It would be a shame to kill you after I went through all the trouble to save you" Ari hissed to the child, getting fed up with this game very quickly.

"Don't kill her" Gryps said after a moment, sharing control with Ari so as not to provoke him into acting rashly. 'tell her it's alright or something.'

Pausing in his decision to break the girls neck Ari considered the situation for a moment.

Gryps was talking to him.

Gryps was working with him.

Forget that their was a sobbing snot nosed brat clinging to his shirt.

Gryps was not ignoring him.

This situation could turn out to his advantage.

"Mind your distance" he said to the little girl, all but pulling her arms off as he roughly threw her off him before kneeling down on the ground beside her, giving control to Gryps who seemed at a loss for what to do with the crying child. He knew what was going through the mind of his griffin of light.

He couldn't just leave the girl in the middle of nowhere to die. Not after the dreams Ari had been plaguing him with. It would make him just as evil as the griffin of dark.

"Stop crying" he muttered awkwardly after a moment giving the girl a pat on the shoulder. "Your on the ground now"

Ari almost laughed at the pathetic attempt, but the child reacted to it, looking up at him with rapidly calming eyes.

'She looks like Casimir' Ari muttered after a moment as the girl looked at his wings curiously.

"Is Onii-chan a Guardian Tenshi?" She asked seriously, causing Gryps to twitch and Ari to smile. He could like this kid.

"Don't call me Onii-chan" Gryps snapped coldly, turning away from the girl and starting walking down the path to the base of the cliff. " and I'm not a Tenshi. My name is Gryps"

Hesitating for a moment, the girl looked at the sheer drop of the cliff before running to catch up to him, clinging to his wrist as she followed at his side.

'Awww, do you think Aether will let us keep her?' Ari muttered sarcastically. Gryps rolled his eyes.

"Don't you start"

"Onii-chan, what's your last name?" she asked tugging on his arm as they finally reached the rock pools, safely at the bottom of the cliff. Ari suppressed the anger that rose in him at the contact, and let the girl go. She wasn't really a threat after all.

"I don't have one. My name is just Gryps" he said as he moved to retrieve his abandoned book.

"Oh. Well that's weird" the girl declared as she picked up his bag and began snooping through it, presumably for food. "Cause you can't both have the same name"

Both?

Spinning around quickly, Gryps narrowed his eyes at the tiny girl.

"What do you mean both?" he asked coldly.

The girl, who had just discovered a jar of cut fruit at the bottom of his bag looked up at him and smiled.

"Onii-chan has a friend right?" she said simply opening the jar and picking out a piece of apple before jabbing her finger in the direction of the cliff. "I heard you talking to him up there"

Considering her for a moment, both Gryps and Ari were unsure what to say. The girl seemed to be smarter than an average child, but she looked pure human.

"I was talking to myself" Gryps said after a moment, causing Ari to pout.

"No you weren't. You were talking to your friend. It's okay, I can see him, I know he is real"

"You can see him?" Gryps asked, beginning to wonder if the child didn't just have an overactive imagination.

"Mmmhmmm. He is right there." Looking to where the girl was pointing, Gryps saw his reflection looking at him in a rock pool.

"He is pretty and shiny. Just like a guardian angel! Maybe he was sent to protect you, Onii-chan. Just like you protected me!"

"There is nothing Angelic about him" Gryps muttered as he picked up his soaked sketch book. "In fact, if he comes out, you should run and hide"

"But he is part of you right?" The girl questioned as she continued eating his fruit, picking out the pieces of banana as she went. "That means he can't be bad"

Getting seriously annoyed with this child's brand of logic, Gryps sat down and sighed.

"Sparkle" the girl muttered after a moment around a mouthful of grape.

"pardon" Gryps asked as he thought about where he could take her and she'd be safe.

"Your friend. I named him Sparkle. He is pretty, and he sparkles in the sun, but he doesn't like hugs"

Gryps just shook his head.

"And what's your name?" Ari asked, amused by the child's words.

"I'm five" she said, closing the now empty jar and getting to her feet, bouncing forward to give it to Ari "and my name is Ophelia"

Ophelia.

He felt that he should remember that name.

A name that was to change so much.


End file.
